A work table in a laboratory, a hospital bed in an intensive-care unit, an operating table in an operating room, or the like is frequently provided with a so-called service stand which can supply various fluids and gases to the work area, and which can carry monitors of sensing devices that can take and display various readings. In a laboratory or similar work area the service stand can supply air under pressure, electricity, and water, as well as provide a suction line and connections to various devices connected to or carried directly in the stand. In a hospital situation such a service stand can supply various gases and liquids, as well as carry connections to the appropriate monitoring devices at least some of which--like a cardiac monitor--are carried directly in the service stand.
It has been suggested, in order to save space, to make such an arrangement as a column. This requires, however, a vertical arrangement of the various connections, so that all but the topmost connections can be covered by hoses or wires connected to the connections above. As a result it is necessary to provide considerable vertical space between the connections in order to give orderly access to them, which inherently limits the number of connections that can be provided.
Thus recourse has been had to service stands such as described in German patent document No. 1,690,160 which have longitudinally extending rails on which the connections are provided. In this manner the connections can be grouped relatively closely without interfering with one another. If such a horizontally extended arrangement is mounted on a wall, it requires that the work area also be against the wall, thereby limiting access to it. When, as has been suggested, it is suspended from the ceiling at, for instance, the head of a hospital bed, it does not prevent travel completely around the work area, but does still largely restrict access from the side it is provided at. Furthermore when such an arrangement is provided, as suggested in German patent documents Nos. 2,122,928 and 2,309,935, with support rails on which bottles, masks, and the like can be hung they even further block off one side of the work area.